Food & Entertainment

As you’d expect, nowhere in Thailand can compete with Bangkok’s diversity when it comes to eating and entertainment and though prices are generally higher here than in the provinces, it’s still easy to have a good time while on a budget. Bangkok boasts an astonishing fifty thousand places to eat – that’s almost one of every hundred citizens – ranging from grubby street side noodle shops to the most elegant of restaurants. Here we run through the best of the city’s indigenous eateries, with a few representatives of the capital’s numerous ethic minorities.

Bangkok Nightlife has at long outgrown its reputation for catering only to single man and now centres around dozen of fashionable bars and sophisticated clubs, where hip design and trend-setting DJs drawn in capacity crowds of stylish young Thais and partying travelers. Getting back to your lodgings is no problem in the small hours: many bus routes run a (reduced) service throughout the night and tuk-tuks and taxis are always at hand – though it’s probably best for unaccompanied woman to avoid using tuk-tuks late at night.

Introductions to more traditional elements of Thai culture are offered by raucous ambience of the city’s boxing arenas, its music and dancing troupes and its profusion of shops, stalls and markets – all of them covered here.

Eating

Thai eateries of all types are found all over Bangkok. The best gourmet Thai restaurants in the country operate from the down districts around Thanon Sukhumvit and Thanon Silom, proffering wonderful royal, traditional and regional cuisines that definitely merit a visit. Over in Banglamphu, Thanon Phra Athit has become famous for its dozen or so trendy little restaurant-bars, each with distinctive décor and a contemporary Thai menu that’s angled at young Thai diners. At the other end of the scale there are the night markets and street stalls, so numerous in Bangkok that we can only flag the most promising areas – but wherever you’re staying, you will hardly have to walk a block in any direction before encountering something appealing.

For the non-Thai cuisines, Chinatown naturally rates as the most authentic district for pure Chinese food; likewise neighboring Pahura, the capital’s Indian enclave, is best for unadultered Indian dishes; and good, comparatively cheap Japanese restaurants are concentrated on Soi Thaniya, at the east end of Thanon Silom. The place to head for Western, travelers’ food – from herbal teas and hamburgers to muesli – as well as a hearty range of veggies options, is Thanon Khao San, packed with small, inexpensive tourist restaurants; standards vary, but there are some definite gems among the blander establishments.

Besides the night markets and street stalls, fast food comes in two main forms: the Thai version is the upper-floor food courts of shopping centres and department stores all over the city, dishing up mostly one-dish meals from around the country, while the old Western favorites like McDonald’s and KFC mainly congregate around Thanon Sukhumvit and Siam Square. In addition, downtown Bangkok has a good quota of coffee shops, including several branches of local company Black Canyon and Starbucks, latter expensive but usually graced with armchairs and free newspapers.

In the more expensive restaurants listed below you may have to pay a ten percent service charge and seven percent government tax. Telephone numbers are given for the more popular or out-of-the-way establishments, where booking may be advisable. Most restaurants in Bangkok are open every day for lunch and dinner.